054/A FFG Thread II
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I would think maybe the colour is more than just superficial and could indicate special materials being applied to the surface after construction.
The mast is in front of the main chimney, so unless they plan on sailing these bad boys backwards on a regular basis, the mast should not get too sooty. Heat, however, is a different matter and I would imagine that part of the ship will get plenty toasty. Thus it might be a good idea to apply special heat insulating paint/coating to that part of the ship to protect the metal from being overly stressed from all the heat expansion and contraction.
In addition, such an insulator should also help to make sure the mast does not show up too brightly on any IR sensors. Not much good spending a lot of time and effort making the chimney stack harder to detect using IR sensors if your mast lights up like a christmas tree instead.
The mast is in front of the main chimney, so unless they plan on sailing these bad boys backwards on a regular basis, the mast should not get too sooty. Heat, however, is a different matter and I would imagine that part of the ship will get plenty toasty. Thus it might be a good idea to apply special heat insulating paint/coating to that part of the ship to protect the metal from being overly stressed from all the heat expansion and contraction.
In addition, such an insulator should also help to make sure the mast does not show up too brightly on any IR sensors. Not much good spending a lot of time and effort making the chimney stack harder to detect using IR sensors if your mast lights up like a christmas tree instead.
Maybe there are cooling systems like water tubes under the skin, and black paint would make this system more efficient?
plawolf
Lieutenant General
That is a common false assumption. There are 3 ways energy is transfered, radiation, conduction and convection. Colour has no impact on conduction or convection, which is how heat is going to be transfered to the mast from hot exhaust gasses. You only get hotter when wearing black coloured clothing when in the sun because black absorbs the most forms of radiation, which is then converted into thermal energy.
A simple experiment you can do at home if you don't believe me is wear different coloured clothing when sitting next to a radiator indoors. You will not feel any difference in how warm the radiator feels depending on what colour you were wearing. Note this will not work with a fire, since fire also gives off thermal radiation.
Spartan95
Junior Member
It is quite common to see structures near the funnel painted black.
And if you look at the 3rd picture of post #1055, it is only the portion above the top of the funnel that is painted black. The portion below is not painted black. Should be quite clear why it is painted black.
One thing we know is that the black paint were applied after the base paint:
I'm still more convinced that it's to keep a clean look of the ship and avoid hard to clean stains.
In this pic you see that the fore mast is closer to the funnel than the rear but only the rear mast is painted black. Also the sensors on the mast tip is not painted where as there are places higher that are. This suggests that the temperature at that point is tolerable and the reason for the black paint is more for appearance.
I'm still more convinced that it's to keep a clean look of the ship and avoid hard to clean stains.
In this pic you see that the fore mast is closer to the funnel than the rear but only the rear mast is painted black. Also the sensors on the mast tip is not painted where as there are places higher that are. This suggests that the temperature at that point is tolerable and the reason for the black paint is more for appearance.
